


Tell Me That You Love Me Anyway

by Ghost_in_the_Hella



Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [4]
Category: Life Is Strange (Video Game)
Genre: F/F, Prompt Fill, Talking to the dead, amberprice, but at least they use protection, but mostly sad, kinda smutty, these teens are bad at feelings
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-10
Updated: 2020-03-10
Packaged: 2021-02-28 20:33:35
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Major Character Death
Chapters: 1
Words: 909
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23093374
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ghost_in_the_Hella/pseuds/Ghost_in_the_Hella
Summary: Sometimes these things just slip out.
Relationships: Maxine "Max" Caulfield/Chloe Price, Rachel Amber/Chloe Price
Series: To All of You (prompt fills) [4]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1656067
Comments: 15
Kudos: 47





	Tell Me That You Love Me Anyway

**Author's Note:**

  * For [explosionshark](https://archiveofourown.org/users/explosionshark/gifts).



> Explosionshark prompted me on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ghost-in-the-hella) with "Tell me again." Amberprice bummer smut ensued. 
> 
> Title is, embarrassingly enough, taken from a song from the TV show Victorious.

“Tell me again.”

“Tell you _what_ again?” Chloe’s head is still a pleasant, swirling blank. She wishes that Rachel would let it stay that way.

Rachel turns to look at her with a wicked grin and flicks at Chloe’s nose with her gloved hand. “You _know_ what.”

“Dude, ew.” Chloe swats Rachel’s hand away and wipes her face on the sheet. It’s probably not much cleaner at this point, but it’s the principle of the thing. “That was _in_ me.”

Rachel shrugs and peels off the glove, shooting it toward her trashcan like a rubberband. “Prude.”

“Y’know, people think you’re this sweet, pristine, angelic princess. If they only knew what a disgusting little hobgoblin you really are, your reputation would really take a nosedive.”

“Wowwww, have you been gossiping with Victoria about me? You two have _very_ similar talking points.”

“No, but--”

“Anyway.” Rachel rolls onto her side, leaning into Chloe. She pokes Chloe in the chest. “Don’t think that I don’t notice you changing the subject.”

Chloe squirms. “Was there a subject to change?” Rachel narrows her eyes at Chloe. She knows Chloe too well by this point; she can read her without the slightest effort. Chloe sighs in resignation. “I didn’t mean to say it, alright? It just… slipped out. Can we please not make a big deal out of this?”

“Out of what?” Rachel leans over Chloe so that she’s all Chloe can see. Her grin has skipped over ‘impish’ and is teetering on the brink of ‘demonic.’ “You telling me you loooooooove me?”

Chloe gives Rachel a shove. It does nothing to budge her or her incredibly smug grin. “Shut up. It was an accident.”

Rachel’s face is the picture of skepticism. “An accident. I see. And how does that work, exactly?”

Chloe shrugs as best she can under Rachel’s weight. “It doesn’t count if you’re coming.”

Rachel snorts. “You should have that printed on a bumper sticker.”

It isn’t fair. Chloe’s been doing such a good job of keeping that phrase locked up inside. She’s thought it often enough, but she’s been so very, very careful never to say it out loud. This all only works if they’re on the same page. She knows once she says it - _really_ says it - then it’ll all be over.

Giggling, Rachel leans in closer still and whispers tauntingly into her ear: “ _Tell me again_.”

Chloe pushes her away and Rachel laughs.

The first time Chloe tells Rachel she loves her isn’t the last, but she only ever says it when she’s too wasted or too turned on to remember how not to. Rachel never says it at all. 

The last time Chloe tells her is the first time she says it on purpose. It’s over a year after she and Max left Arcadia Bay a waterlogged mess in their rearview mirror, and it’s the first time they’ve returned to the scene of the crime since. The town is under heavy construction, positively bustling with life. The Prescott family got left with a nice, clean slate after she and Max wiped the town off the map. The only familiar sights left are the faces and names scattered on memorial plaques all over town.

They missed the mass memorial services. Skipped them, actually. They happened just a couple of weeks after they’d left town, and it was still all too raw. Plus it rubbed Chloe the wrong way that she’d be expected to mourn her mom and Rachel at the same time as the asshole who killed Rachel and would’ve killed her. “If that’s closure, I don’t want it.”

But she and Max have been traveling for over a year, and even though the wounds still hurt they no longer bleed. She brings a tiny bottle of Jack from the hotel minibar and pours it out over Rachel’s grave. Rachel used to like drinking out of those tiny bottles. Chloe had made Thelma and Louise jokes every time.

“Hey, Rach. Guess we shoulda just kept going, huh?” Chloe accepts the tissue that Max hands her. She nods in mute gratitude when Max tells her she’s going to go visit some of her old Blackwell friends and let Chloe and Rachel have some time to themselves.

Chloe stares down at the damp patch she’s poured in front of Rachel’s headstone and tries to think of something worth saying. “Kinda morbid, I know, but I’m glad they moved you. You deserve better than a shallow grave in a junkyard. And hey, I heard Victoria’s parents shipped her to Seattle. So you don’t have to spend all of eternity bitching at each other.” Chloe crouches down and runs her fingers over Rachel’s name. “Would’ve been cool if your folks had had you moved back to Cali. I probably would’ve visited sooner, honestly.”

“I’m honored you came back here at all.” A chill runs down Chloe’s spine at the sound of Rachel’s voice from behind her. She crushes her eyes shut on sudden tears. She doesn’t turn around. “I figured once you got out of this hellhole you’d never come back at all.”

“Rach.”

Phantom arms wrap warm and weightless around her shoulders. Lips brush breathlessly against her ear. “Tell me again? Please?” Rachel sounds more vulnerable in death than she ever did in life.

Chloe doesn’t have to ask her what she means. She reaches up and links fingers with a hand that isn’t there, and she tells her one last time. 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you to explosionshark for the prompt and to all of you for reading! Hit me up with more prompts on [tumblr](https://www.tumblr.com/blog/ghost-in-the-hella), and remember: comments and kudos make the world go round. Or at least they make me write fic more often.


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